But there were still several other motives for hesitation, when once he began to doubt. He felt that Mrs. Falkland was perfectly right in asserting, in every way, the inviolability of the promise she had made to the gipsy--he felt that the gipsy had a right to expect that it would be kept. He knew, also, that if Mrs. Falkland chose to call her servants, and order the liberation of the gipsy, in all probability any attempt to detain him would be in vain; and he was conscious, too, that in making the attempt, he was acting, at least, a very ungracious part. Still none of these motives, singly, would have restrained him, had he not felt the strongest doubts of the gipsy's guilt; but when a great many different motives enter into a conspiracy together to change a man's opinion, they are like smiths engaged in forging a piece of red-hot iron,--one gives it a stroke with his sledge-hammer, and another gives it a stroke, till, hard as it may be, it is moulded to their will. Manners, however,--although he might be led by many considerations to temper the stern rigidity of duty,--was not a man to abandon it altogether; and, therefore, he sought a mean which, as it was only at his personal risk, he thought himself justified in following, in order that Mrs. Falkland's promise might be held inviolate, and, perhaps, that Isadore might be obeyed.
"Well!" he said, after a moment's consideration. "All this business has happened most unfortunately, that I should meet a man here whom I am bound to apprehend, and who yet is guarded by a promise of safety. However, Mrs. Falkland, although I cannot abandon my own duty, yet I must do what I can to reconcile it with the engagement under which this person came here. I think you said," he added, turning to Pharold, "that if I would take you to the wood, or the bare hill-side, with no odds against you, I might arrest you if I could--did you not?"
"I did," said Pharold, "and I repeat it."
"Then we are agreed," said Colonel Manners. "I will do so, although I am fatigued and exhausted."
"Who has a right to be the most fatigued?"' cried the gipsy. "Have I not been hunted since the morning from wood to wood? Have I not had to double and to turn like a hare before the hounds? Have I not twice swam that quick stream? Have I had repose of mind or body, that you should talk of fatigue?"
"Well, well," said Manners, "all this matters little. I accept the proposal which you have yourself made; and I thus specify the terms. Though accompanied by me, you shall go free from this place in any direction that you please for one quarter of an hour; a space of time fully sufficient to put you out of all danger of being overpowered by numbers. At the end of that time you are my prisoner."
"If you can make me so," cried the gipsy: "if you can make me so."
"Agreed," replied Manners: "that is what I mean, of course; otherwise our agreement would be of no use."
"Colonel Manners," exclaimed Isadore, calling him back to her, for, in speaking, he had advanced a little towards the gipsy and Mrs. Falkland, "for God's sake, do not go. You do not know what may happen. Indeed, indeed, it is risking a valuable life most rashly. Let me persuade you not to go."
She made Colonel Manners's heart beat more rapidly than ever it had done in his life; for to a man who felt as he did, and who had nourished the fancies that he had, to hear the voice of beauty, and worth, and gentleness pleading to him for his own safety, was something much more agitating than the roar of artillery, or the rush of charging squadrons. Isadore spoke, too, in a voice low, from an effort not to appear too much interested, and a little faint, too, perhaps, from late agitation and exhaustion; so that there was, in fact, a great deal more of tenderness in her tone than she at all wished or intended.